Friday, October 12, 2018

Find Your Tribe (Tradecraft)

When I first started my store, I applied to the GAMA mentorship program. I got a call about 18 months later asking if I was interested, and considering how far I had gotten in my business, and how I had established my support network, I declined. That has been a major shortcoming of GAMA since I began, and it's not much better now.

Although I never had a mentor, I had people in the trade I networked with and followed -- sometimes too closely. Most are gone now, retired, passed away, or they simply stopped doing the thing. Some newer people looked up to me and sought my advice and now they've far surpassed me in the trade and I seek them out. Some are plugging along doing the same thing without much change or growth, and they're no longer on my radar. It's almost always about finding smart people full of good ideas and a positive perspective, and less about comparing bottom lines.

Besides the obvious need to learn how to run a better store, the biggest reason for finding your tribe is temporal displacement, something most Millennials are familiar with. If you do this long enough, you'll likely find yourself in a time bubble. The world around you will continue at a fast pace. Your friends and family with likely make great strides financially and personally. Meanwhile, you've chosen the Slow Path. Relationships and family, home ownership, plans for retirement all take a back seat to the voracious monster you feed each day.

Running a game store might bring you happiness, but the Slow Path certainly doesn't bring riches or leave a lot of time for many personal accomplishments. If you start comparing yourself to those outside the field, you may experience alienation and disorientation. Depression and suicide is not uncommon in small business. That's where a strong support network comes into play.

Finding your tribe is finding like minded individuals to share your victories and drown your sorrows. As I've said before, only other small business owners are likely to understand the lifestyle of a small business owner (those on the outside get upset when I talk like this). Find that understanding to keep you growing, maintain sanity and support your business. Eventually you're likely to get to the stage where you'll poke your head above the trees and see daylight again.